Time to get further north for some cooler weather, right?

Wrong!

Haha man we have hit every possible heat wave. At least we know our air conditioning works super well!

From Nebraska, we drove up to Walker, MN in a day. This was our longest travel day thus far, and it was a breeze! The roads were smooth and quiet, and the hours passed quickly. It was 7 hours but didn’t feel like it at all. This has made us feel better about a few longer travel days here and there as long as good roads and weather permit it.

The reason we came up to northern Minnesota, is for my annual girl’s trip. Me and my three best friends from college all meet up for nearly five full days of girlhood bliss. One of my friends has a family cabin on a lake there, and it has been such a sacred place for us to congregate each year and catch up, have cold drinks in the sun on the boat, laugh till our bellies and faces hurt, and cook delicious meals together. We even bring gifts! It’s such a wonderful respite for us as moms and gives us a chance to just be women and friends for a bit. We have the best time and the yapping is endless. Each year has been special in its own ways! We’ve been going since 2021 (officially).

This year, since the dates landed at the end of one week, and the beginning of the next, we parked the camper there for two weeks. Tom took the second week off, also because we had a lot of travel after leaving Minnesota (more on that later). So he and the boys had a (hot), fun week too. They did a lot of fishing, playing on area beaches, biking, and they even visited the Mississippi River headwaters!

The campground here was set perfectly in the woods with large sites, and the manager or owner would put up this massive blow-up water slide on hot days for the boys or other campground kids he saw around. It was super sweet and made our time there more bearable. The boys had a lot of freedom here and rode their bikes around the campground daily. We also got to have a few days to ourselves which was so needed after daily socializing and visiting for a month. It was wonderful! …but people need a chance to get their lives in order. Haha! So we did lots of laundry, baked plenty of bread, and downsized a few items we had been hauling that weren’t being used.

Overall, Minnesota was a lovely respite and reset before the big adventure began… THE WEST!